


Ouzo

by Athenova



Series: Searching for the Land of Light [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Crying, Drinking, Guilt, Heracles really doesn't like himself, Hurt No Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm sorry baby, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28558977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athenova/pseuds/Athenova
Summary: Some issues are intensified by alcohol.
Series: Searching for the Land of Light [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2052129
Kudos: 5





	Ouzo

The scent of alcohol and smoke lingered in the air. Laughter dressed the walls. Drunken singing and the occasional sobbing of a desperate man in debt blessed the worn out bar.

To be a night owl is torture. Especially for a nation.

Heracles shambled across the small bar, reeking of illness. His hair tangled, dark circles danced around his calm face, a frown betraying exhaustion written on his face.

He threw himself on a worn out stool, feeling its cover peel and reveal its soft, cotton insides. _How typically Greek_ , he thought bitterly. _They couldn’t even afford to replace the chairs.  
_

The bartender rushed to Heracles’ service, much to his pleasure. Despite the ugly interior and exterior of the bar, worn out walls covered with lazily cut wallpaper, the bartender was well-groomed. He appeared young, around his mid-20s, with piercing dark eyes and dark hair slicked back.

“How may I help you, sir?”  
  


“One shot of the best ouzo you have.” Heracles replied curtly, pushing a 20 euro bill towards him with his point finger. His eyes refused to meet the bartender’s.

The bartender nodded with a small smile, running across his place to get a clean glass and the best ouzo the bar offered.  
  
  


As if he were lightning, the bartender came back with the clear liquid, like the waters of a frozen lake, settled neatly on a crystal clear glass.

Heracles seized the glass and swallowed it, feeling the ouzo burn the back of his throat like a wildfire.

An addicting feeling on sleepless nights like these.

As the ouzo settled on his stomach, Heracles felt his mouth move without thinking.   
  


“What’s your name, kid.”

The bartender turned around, dark eyes widening in the sudden question. Tilting his head on his right as he prepared what seemed to be a fruit punch, he spoke.

“Anastasios, sir.”  
  


“Anastasios?” Heracles sighed, a sad smile gracing his tired face. “That’s a pleasant name. Where are you from, Anastasios?”  
  


“I’m from Larissa, sir.” Replied the bartender who seemed to fall for Heracles’ intriguing questions, answering them so naturally, as if they were nothing but muscle memory of the brain. “I came to Athens to study.”  
  


“What are you studying?”  
  


“Medicine. I can’t make ends meet with my parents’ money, so I work here at night.”  
  
  


He can’t? That statement felt like a gunshot to Heracles’ chest.

How many young people of his land were forced in such conditions?  
  
  


“Believe me,” Anastasios smiled softly, as if he wanted to comfort him, sliding the fruit punch to a customer behind the bar without looking at them, as if they were a dark shadow. “I’m not the only one in such a condition. Almost all university students in Greece do that. It’s a way to earn independence from your parents, in a way.”  
  
  


Heracles felt his stomach turn. He was all for letting youth gain their independence by growing a steady work ethic, like all Greeks, but the conditions of this particular bar were atrocious. Too tight, too dark. The walls reeked of death… The fact that it was just a kid running the entire shop, the only worker there apparently didn’t help.

And God knows how many kids are in similar, if not worse, conditions.  
Heracles put down his glass to envelop his face in his hands. Anastasios asked if he wanted another glass of ouzo, which Heracles replied with a mere nod.  
  
  
He rubbed his eyes, dry and red from the torture of not letting them rest. He couldn’t sleep.  
Not even at night. His thoughts and issues wouldn’t let him sleep. 

  
  
He removed his hands from his face, letting them hang lifelessly by his sides.  
  


“What are you studying in medicine?” Raspy voice that broke Heracles’ throat. As if he forced it to come out. Which was not untrue.  
  


“Neurology,” came the young man’s answer, as he slid the ouzo to Heracles. “I wish to understand the human brain better.”

  
“You do?” Heracles answered, grabbing the ouzo with trembling hands. **_Why_ ** _was he trembling?  
_ He could feel the despair settle in his heart. Salty tears rising in his eyes, making them sting worse than a stab at the heart.

  
“I want to see with precision what causes us to think, to feel, to speak. What is it hiding? I just want to research it thoroughly.” The young man’s voice was so passionate as he spoke, a fire burning in his eyes, typical of the youth at their prime.

Ambitious was Anastasios.

Heracles blinked repeatedly, fruitless attempt at avoiding the tears from rolling down his cheeks failing spectacularly.   
He had _so_ many hopes, _so_ much future and _such_ a bright passion that flared in his soul. A tiny sun of youthful hopes and dreams, one would say.

And what could Heracles, the personification of Greece, offer him?   
Nothing, apart from a decent education. In this land, nothing worked without payment and proficiency at being a con artist. Corruption spread in his veins, tainting his blood. He was at fault for these circumstances, for these kids’ suffering.  
  
He was too weak, too sad a fool to stop the phenomenon, too weak-willed to stop demagogues from leeching off the honest, hard-working people’s money. Too incompetent to end the people’s torture.  
  
The people he struggled with so much to protect. The people he shed his own blood and tears to save. The people he sacrificed a quiet, uneventful life for.  
He was at fault.

The tears crashed down at his soul like a wrecking ball demolishing a building, guilt piling up like the body of an executed innocent, crashing to the ground.

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry at his incompetence, Heracles chose to let out a pitiful sob, a sob unfitting of the warrior who lived thousands of years, through thousands of battles, much bloodshed and agony, betrayal and resurrection.

“Why are you here then?” He croaked, letting another sob escape his throat with his statement.

“Excuse me?” Anastasios blinked, his eyes widening to the size of broken plates.

“Why are you in Greece?”

Silence fell across the shop. The only thing that could be heard was Heracles’ sobs and sniffles, echoing in the dim light of the shop, and in the black summer night.

“Leave this country. Greece has no future for you.”  
  


“Sir..?”  
  


Heracles threw his face against the wooden bar with such force, his glass flew from its position and fell next to him.

“I have no future for you. I’m sorry, Anastasios.”

Heracles’ sobs developed into outright wails. He was unsure of whether the ouzo started affecting him.

But it didn’t matter any longer.

Nothing did.  
  


“I’m sorry.”


End file.
